


Incorruptible

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:43:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: Stuck in time, Sansa Stark has spent nearly a century traveling the world and evading the man who once attempted to force her into marrying him, Ramsay Bolton. Upon his death, she returns home to Winterfell and the life she once knew. Her first order of business before exacting revenge? Bringing her beloved back from the dead.





	1. Prologue

**Approximately 90 years ago**

Sansa knew this was risky business, to go right into the heart of Winterfell and out in public with Jon. 

She was too excited to see the best collection of art anywhere in the North, though, to let any of those misgivings stop her. She dressed up nice for their day out on the town, in a black lace dress and black netting to match pinned in her hair, reaching just low enough to cover her eyes. Jon called her beautiful when she linked her arm with his on the walk over, although she personally found the entire outfit a bit macabre, especially with her hair now dyed black as well, which she had done two days ago to escape _his_ notice. She missed her red hair already, but her newly-darkened strands were the only thing that made her feel safe enough to leave the house today.

There was no hiding Jon’s mane of curls, but she wouldn’t have changed them for anything. He’d offered to shear them as she sat, waiting for the dye to soak into her red locks, insisting she didn’t have to do this, that he could make the sacrifice instead. She refused to allow that—what difference would it make? He hardly ever spared Jon a second glance, anyhow. 

Jon had gone for the formal look, too, in the only suit he owned. He looked dashing, Sansa thought, and more than a few of the other girls in the gallery directed their attention his way. She held his hand tighter. 

Jon Snow didn’t have money like the old rich, powerful families in the North, her own Starks and their adversaries, the Boltons, but Sansa didn’t care. She appreciated that there were more important things than money. Jon treated her well, and he was kind and brave. He wanted to join the local fire brigade to help those in need, rushing to douse flames wherever they sprang up or delivering medical attention quickly to those who were injured or required transportation to be brought to Dr. Luwin in town. 

As much as her mind had been weighed down lately, Sansa found herself mesmerized by the paintings—the water lilies of Monet, portraits by Renoir, Guillaumin’s landscapes—work of some of the most notable artists of the past decade all gathered in one place where she could finally enjoy them as she always dreamed.

It only took a moment’s distraction, a split second of letting her guard down. 

“Oh, Sansa Stark.” 

Sansa didn’t need to turn to see who spoke. The chills that ran up her spine told her enough. 

“My silly, beautiful girl. Did you think you could fool me?”

Jon bristled beside her. “She isn’t yours.” 

Ramsay Bolton ignored him, stalking closer. “Hm, does your father know where you are? I’ll answer that one. He does, or did, really, because I told him right before I took off his head with that great sword he displays on the wall of his. After that, using it to slice open your mother’s throat and drive it through dear Robb’s heart was easy.” 

“What are you talking about?” The words came as fast and rushed as her heartbeat. 

He removed a length of her mother’s thick auburn hair from his breast pocket, pulled Sansa’s hand out of Jon’s, and dropped it into her palm. “A gift.” 

“No,” Sansa stumbled backward into Jon. “No…”

“Oh yes,” Ramsay continued. “Your little brothers required a bit more creativity, though. The open attic window on the third floor served well for Bran and the crossbow I discovered up there filled in quite nicely for Rickon.” 

She didn’t have a chance to ask about Arya. 

Jon launched himself at Ramsay. 

The other man was quicker, though. Ramsay drew the knife he always carried from his hip and plunged it into Jon’s chest. Jon’s grey eyes went wide in shock, and when his victim didn’t crumple at the end of his blade, Ramsay drew it out and plunged it back into his torso, again and again, below his collarbone, into his ribs. 

Finally, at long last, Ramsay relented, standing back to admire his handiwork. Jon faltered and fell to the floor in his finery, blood seeping through his dress clothes.

The room spun as Sansa swayed on the spot, the hall around her seemingly silent as she fell to his side, brushing his curls out of his face, curving her hand around his cheek, willing the spark in his eyes to return. She grabbed ahold of the lapels of his jacket and shook, pressed against his chest, called his name to no avail. 

And then chaos broke loose. 

Ramsay began shouting orders to his men, and the din of panic echoed through the gallery as museumgoers flooded towards the exit doors. 

“No,” Sansa screamed as a hand reached out to lift her up and drag her away. “No! NO!” 

She didn’t care, even when she realized it was only Brienne, her family’s most trusted associate. 

“Let me go!” 

Brienne didn’t. She tugged Sansa away from a lifeless Jon, following most of the crowd, pouring down the steps concealed behind a painting that spanned from floor to ceiling. Such a commotion would bring attention from the outside none of them desired to draw. 

They emerged into a speakeasy where the pandemonium upstairs couldn’t be heard—only the discussion and laughter of the patrons, the clinking of glasses, and the free-flowing pouring of illicit liquor.

“I’ll get us some drinks,” Brienne said, leading Sansa to a table in the back. “Try to blend in.” 

Sansa sat alone, trembling. Brienne must have followed her here, she realized, for the sole possibility of this kind of incident, leaving her family vulnerable, unprotected… she had never liked the rest of the sentries they employed at the family estate; the entire lot of the Freys combined possessed not even a fraction of Brienne’s skill nor dignity. 

She ran her hands over her dress to smooth it, a nervous habit of a proper lady, and gasped when she drew them away, her palms smudged with blood—Jon’s blood. 

She bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t let her tears fall, not here. 

_Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._

They were words Jon had said to comfort her, when her mother told her she should stop wasting her time because she could never marry a boy “like that,” whatever that meant, when Ramsay called her a whore for allowing such “trash” to court her, when her father told her it was too dangerous for her to go south to King’s Landing for school, where all the up and coming artists flocked to share their work, like she’d always wanted. 

_Father,_ she thought with a pang, grateful again for the netting that shielded her eyes. And her mother. And Robb, Bran, Rickon… they were all dead because of her. How selfish had she been to put them at risk for her own desires? How stupid had she been to not take Ramsay’s threats seriously? 

Brienne returned with glasses of moonshine. “It looked better than the water,” she muttered. “The barman’s name is Sam. Said to go out that door if we need escape.” 

Sansa nodded and tried to force herself to breathe. Even if she escaped, where would she go? Everyone she knew, everyone except Brienne, was gone… 

Loud thuds on the stairs interrupted her panic. Ramsay and his men emerged looking like a pack of hunting dogs fresh from the kill.

“I know my girl is here somewhere,” he called. “Be a good lady, Sansa. Know your place—with me.” 

Brienne pushed Sansa backward and the door in the wall, another hidden panel, opened. This time the wooden stairs seemed to descend forever, winding downward, until they opened up into a larger, cavernous room with a cathedral ceiling perhaps three stories high. 

Crates of illegal liquor awaiting distribution and consumption lined the walls, but the center space had been left open. Rows of neat, orderly chairs covered in a thin layer of dust were arranged in front of a platform against one wall. 

“No,” Sansa gasped, recognizing the scene.

“Yes,” Ramsay’s voice echoed as he trotted down the steps behind them. “How is it that you always end up right where I want, my sweet Sansa?”

Her hair stood on end as Ramsay used the same endearment as Jon always had but with none of his warmth and affection.

“I’d say it’s a sign we’re meant to be. I hope our marriage continues as such. For instance, I only need think about you beneath me, atop me, on your knees for me to take you. All very convenient.” He gestured up the staircase. “Ah! Our witnesses!” 

The patrons of the speakeasy upstairs filed down, prodded by the rest of Ramsay’s men. 

“We need only wait for the minister now. Oh, and for you to be presentable. I hardly think it proper to wear black to one’s own wedding.” 

Before she could say a thing, a couple of the barmaids swept in, pulling the netting out of her hair and her dress off, forcing her into white fringe, pearls, and a lace veil. 

“Much better.” Ramsay clapped his hands. “Now, we must follow tradition, but seeing as the state of your father, he won’t be joining us anytime soon. But you, brute, you’ll do nicely.” He pointed to Brienne. 

Sansa turned and marched away from Ramsay, not to comply with his orders, but because she feared she would retch if she stared at his face any longer. 

Sam accompanied her and Brienne to the back, where he motioned towards a hall that snaked off the main cavern. “Follow the passage when you have the chance. Run. And don’t stop.” 

“How—”

Sam blocked them with his substantial frame. “My friend,” he bellowed in jest. “Perhaps you would first like to select your bedding for this evening. I’d imagine you are most looking forward to the consummation.”

Ramsay cackled. “Right you are, Tarly! Excellent idea. Let’s get on with it then. What do you offer?” 

Sam opened the nearest chest. “The finest silk, from Volantis.” He held up the expansive grey tablecloth with both hands.

Sansa and Brienne didn’t wait around for Ramsay to make his choice. His sightlines blocked and his attention distracted, they ran. 

The long, curving passage ascended, and then turned to stairs that went up and up and up until they emerged into the cool night air. People oblivious to the hell that laid inside and beneath the building beside them walked down Winterfell’s Main Street, enjoying the park in the center of the town square. 

Sansa wanted to stop and gasp for air, but she didn’t dare. Instead she strode on, determined to not look back until she felt the sudden rush of heat. She didn’t see how the flames started, only heard them crack as they began to spread, the crash of the wooden beams starting to collapse, the screams of those trapped below. With the amount of booze stored in the basement, there would be no escape for them, nor for the paintings she so admired. 

And Jon. Jon whose soft curls she’d never ruffle again, whose gentle hands she would never again be able to hold, whose lips she’d never again feel move against hers. 

“Sansa.” 

At Brienne’s voice, she realized she had stopped, tears streaming down her face. 

“We have to go.”

“Go where?” 

“We have to leave Winterfell.” 

 

 

So they did, traveling south to the Riverlands where her mother had family, not that Sansa had ever met them. 

They accepted kindnesses from strangers along the way, rides in those fortunate enough to have cars and home-cooked meals and directions from the benevolent who wanted to help the charming, mysterious, pretty girl from the North out of an eagerness to win her approval and her imposing companion, Sansa suspected, out of fear. Pawning the pearls Ramsay yoked her with helped sustain their journey for a while, providing them with enough to afford nights in cheap inns as they worked their way south. 

In one obscure area of the Riverlands, they were directed to seek the prophecy and guidance of a local priestess. While some of the townsfolk appeared to worship her as a god herself, to Sansa, the woman seemed like more of what her mother had always referred to as a “woods witch.” 

She introduced herself as Melisandre, from the land of Asshai across the sea. 

“I can sense your power, even if you do not,” she commented, taking Sansa’s hand in hers. Despite the winter chill, Melisandre felt impossibly warm. “You must have given much to R’hllor.” 

Sansa had no idea what that meant. 

“Hm. I see.” 

“What do you see?” Sansa personally didn’t understand how Melisandre could see much of anything in this cramped space with all the smoke drifting from the fire in her grate. 

“You are in love with someone you cannot have.” 

She hadn’t expected that. “He’s dead.” 

Melisandre gave her a knowing smile. “But he isn’t.” 

She didn’t know what that could mean either. She had watched Jon die right in front of her, seen the building burn around his body. 

“He’s not dead,” she said again. “He’s in repose. Waiting for you to return.”

The way Melisandre explained it, it seemed easy. All she needed was a lock of his hair and to say the words Melisandre could teach her, in some language that sounded mostly like hissing, over a lit flame at the site of Jon’s final resting place. 

Sansa shook her head. Even if this magic, this sorcery, were possible, not only had they heard of how Ramsay somehow managed to escape the inferno, things had only gone downhill since they left Winterfell. The Boltons had taken control of the town and possession of the Starks’ estate. Worse still, it seemed Ramsay suspected Sansa had not perished either, and he had announced he was making all possible efforts to find his ‘lost love’ along with the offer of monetary rewards for any information on her whereabouts. 

“I can’t go back there, not to Winterfell. It’ll be years, decades… I’ll be an old lady by then, if not dead.” 

“Then I will give you years and decades, Sansa Stark,” the priestess said. “As long as you need. On one condition.” 

Melisandre muttered a few words and when Sansa looked down again, she noticed her hair had returned to flaming red. 

“Leave your hair as such to demonstrate the power and beauty of our lord.” 

That part was the easiest. Jon had always loved her red hair.


	2. Chapter 1

**Now**

Much of Winterfell had stayed the same, Sansa mused, as she walked along the outskirts—the grey skies, for one thing, the way the sun set over the mountains in the distance, for another, and lastly, how the temperature dropped the moment daylight waned and night began to take its course. 

She hugged her coat tighter around herself. Sure, her short lace dress perhaps was not the best choice for such an evening, but there was no way in hell she wasn’t going to wear the last dress Jon ever saw her in tonight.

Once upon a time, like that night long ago, she had been inured to the cold. The Riverlands, where she and Brienne first sought refuge with her uncle and great-uncle after leaving Winterfell, experienced only a mild chill in the winter. The Vale, where they spent most of the rough years of the Great Depression with Sansa’s cousin, never got as cold as the true North despite its high altitude. And then there had been the years and years on and off in King’s Landing, the stretches of time on the south coast of Dorne, in the west at Casterly Rock, along the eastern shore of the Stormlands, and the plentiful plains of the Reach, not to mention skipping from Iron Island to Iron Island or the decade across the sea in Essos. No, those places never experienced so much as a single snowflake. 

Sansa hadn’t minded, even if those places never felt like home no matter how long they stayed. She was able to accomplish everything she always wanted to do in her time away: attend school (many of them, in fact), see the world (perhaps too much of it, if she were honest), admire the kinds of art she grew up reading about in books (and even try her hand at creating some of it herself), meet people from near and far (some good, some bad, all of them very interesting), and survive on her own, with only herself to answer to (well, and Brienne, of course, but she didn’t count, not anymore). 

Well, she had done almost all of the things she always wanted, anyway. 

She supposed she owed a strange sort of thanks to the person who enabled all of those possibilities. In the Vale, they ran across a lawyer friend of her mother’s, Petyr Baelish, who arranged for Sansa to anonymously inherit the Starks’ fortune. Too bad Brienne had to dispose of him later on, after he made it clear he had only offered assistance in exchange for Sansa’s hand, and that he had no intention of permitting them nor the Starks’ property to leave his Harrenhal estate. 

Sansa hadn’t thought about Petyr in a long time. She’d done well to push people like that out of her mind, but it seemed impossible to do so, not on this evening, when she was keen on remembering them. She had, after all, been waiting for this day for a long, long time. 

Against her better judgment, she continued to subscribe to the local Winterfell newspaper as they moved from place to place, now made even easier with their online format that delivered updates right to her email inbox. 

Usually it only brought her pain and agony, frequent reminders of the home and family and lover she lost, bored her with inconsequential updates about street repairs or the distribution of tax dollars, or incited flashes of anger whenever praise or thanks were given to _them_. As if _they_ had anything to do with the success of Winterfell. 

And so the news continued, until two days ago, when her daily alert arrived, and the headline proclaimed, “RAMSAY, HEIR TO BOLTON DYNASTY, DEAD AT 109.”

Of course, the incorrigible and literal bastard had lived far beyond anyone’s expectations, not least of all hers. Sansa had been sure Ramsay would have drunk, whored, and fought his way to a violent death and an early grave. And she’d certainly found humor in the dynasty part. If anyone possessed a Winterfell dynasty, it would be her family, the Starks who controlled Winterfell and the greater part of the North for centuries before, not Ramsay and his pathetic father who swept in to capitalize on their success through ill repute during Prohibition. 

So it made sense nostalgia would strike on this day of all days, as she walked past the sprawling streets of Winterfell and en route to the cemetery on the edge of town. Fortunately her and Brienne had only been in the port city of White Harbor when the news arrived, not too far from Winterfell, so in the whirlwind of the last twenty-four hours, she hadn’t had much time until now to think about this, about what she would say and do and how it would feel. 

He would remember her, right? How would she explain this to him? _Could_ she explain it to him? She thought about the amnesiacs she studied when doing a Psychology degree once at Highgarden University, and how they sometimes failed to remember any of their past, their own names, the very languages they spoke. In her haste and desperation all those decades ago, she hadn’t thought to ask Melisandre about these details. 

She almost wished she had allowed Brienne to accompany her, only to calm her nerves. Begging Melisandre to perform her magic on Brienne, too, the only person Sansa had left, had been the best questionable choice she’d ever made, until tonight at least. But no, instead she insisted on going by herself, leaving Brienne behind so her and Jon could be alone, so they could have the reunion she always imagined, full of lingering touches and sweet kisses, macabre scenery be damned. 

The gates were still open in the dimming evening light with not a soul in sight. Though Sansa preferred to not have any witnesses on hand for this, she wasn’t scared anymore, the time having long past for that. Gone were the days of her trying to demurely fend off advances like a proper lady. She’d studied self-defense amongst her other pursuits in recent years and liked to think she could talk her way out of anything, but if all that failed, she could hit the button on her phone that would issue an ear-piercing screech and immediately summon local law enforcement along with Brienne. 

Oh, technology. If only such a thing had existed a hundred years ago, if she could have used such a device to thwart Ramsay, she would likely not be here today. Or perhaps she would, but in a different form—maybe in the ground next to Jon, an old lady who lived a full life, instead of solitary on this particular mission. 

She walked past the entrance to the crypts where generations of Starks going back were buried, replete with statues in their likenesses. Her stomach twisted when she remembered her father, mother, Robb; all of them would likely be in there, would have been there for near on a century. What would they think of her now, if they knew what she was about to do? 

None of that mattered. She’d disappointed them once in the worst possible way, and there was nothing she could do to go back and fix that part of it now. 

And then she found him. 

It didn’t take long. She discovered him easily once she followed the timeline of the plots, walking along the area for those who were not amongst Winterfell royalty. She knelt before his gravestone, carved only with his name, plain and simple, and the year of his birth and death. 

Death. It seemed such a silly notion to Melisandre all those years ago, an absurd proposition, and it had become one to Sansa, too, over the long decades that exerted their toll on everyone else but her. Yet the concept seemed all the more real now as she confronted it face to face, even if Jon wasn’t departed in the traditional sense. 

She smoothed down the black lace of her dress. It still crinkled in some places, where his blood dried; she’d never been able to bear having it cleaned after Brienne managed to snatch it amidst their hasty departure from Ramsay’s dungeon. After all, it was the only reason she had a chance at this anyway. Running her hands over it in the aftermath of their escape, she had discovered a few wisps clinging to the bottom hem. 

She suspected they’d snagged there at some point during the twenty glorious minutes her and Jon had been left alone on their last afternoon together, one of the few memories that still made her smile. With Brienne distracted by Arya’s pleas to show her how to properly wield a sword, they’d continued their walk unsupervised amongst the glass gardens behind the Stark house, venturing even past that to one of Sansa’s favorite spots beside the secluded hot pool and the tall, grey-barked tree with leaves of perpetual dark red. 

Jon had lain her in the grass, commented with a wicked grin how he was thankful her dark-colored dress wouldn’t show any stains, and lifted the skirt. That was the last thing she was certain she clearly remembered, because what followed him delving between her legs and pushing aside her underwear had short-circuited her brain as much as melted her body. The recollections of Jon’s tongue, his hands, the wanton things he did with his fingers… they served to heat her in the cool evening air even almost a century later. 

She took those hairs now out of the waterproof, fireproof, electronically-secured container in which she’d kept them most recently, after she realized years back that wearing them in a locket around her neck was probably not the most prudent option. Lying them down on the earth at the base of his headstone, she lit the candle, cupping it to shield the precious flame from the whip of wind, said the words she’d recited nightly like a prayer, and waited.


	3. Chapter 2

It didn’t work. 

No matter what way the wind blew, or how loudly Sansa said the words, nothing happened. She even tried to burn a single precious piece of his brown curls, thinking perhaps she misunderstood the instructions. 

Her eyes filled with frustrated tears. She didn’t understand. Melisandre had promised! Had she been a fool to believe this whole time? 

“Hey! You there! What are you doing?” 

She jumped at the voice. 

A skinny young man whose ears stuck out on either side of his head weaved his way through the gravestones toward her. He looked fairly harmless, if not overeager with his flashlight beam scanning the ground.

“Praying,” she answered. 

“Oh,” he said. She noticed his badge, pinned to the coat over his dark uniform, identifying him as the cemetery’s night watchman. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but no open flames are allowed here.” 

She straightened and blew out the candle, her hopes going along with it. 

“Sorry again,” he said. “It’s my duty. Former fire serviceman.”

“Really?” She smiled, remembering what Jon had always aspired to do. “Why not anymore?” 

He turned red. “I’ve—er—ended up here by way of circumstances. I was accused of a crime.” He quickly continued on when he noticed Sansa flinch and take a step back. “Nothing violent, I swear! And I know it makes you sound more guilty to claim you aren’t, but I’m not. I was accused of stealing. It’s embarrassing, really. A lifetime of night shifts out in the cold for a big wheel of cheese.”

“And you didn’t do it?”

“I didn’t steal _that,_ ” he said, a grin flitting around his lips this time. “But the Boltons didn’t care. It was brought in specifically for old Ramsay’s last and final wedding, so someone had to be punished when it went missing. There’s not so much as a fair trial here in Winterfell.” 

She tried not to recoil at their names spoken aloud so brazenly after all this time. “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“I’m Pyp.” He offered her a hand. 

“Alayne Stone,” she said, shaking it. She didn’t like using the alias—it reminded her too much of Petyr, who’d coined the moniker—but she had no choice in a town with a name as recognizable as her own, even if it had been awhile since anyone likely heard of her or her family. 

He cast a look over at Jon’s headstone. “Interesting choice.”

“What do you know about him?” She found herself beginning to even more fiercely regret leaving Brienne behind. What if this Pyp actually worked for the Boltons? Was that even his real name? He hadn’t provided a last name… What if this was all just an elaborate cover?

“Not much.” Pyp shrugged. Then he grinned. “But there is quite the story about where he might _really_ be.” 

Sansa’s heart skipped almost the way it had whenever Jon rewarded her with his handsome smile. “And where’s that?” 

Pyp launched into a long-winded, mythicized version of the night Jon died and Sansa fled, referring to it as a “lovers’ spat” and an “accident” turned disastrous by the subsequent fire, Ramsay and a few of his men narrowly escaping before the entire place exploded. “There wasn’t much left of most of them after that, not even bones for some, the fire grew so hot,” he continued. “Some say she’s still out there, haunting Winterfell, wandering and looking for her lost love. And some say he’s still there, his remains entombed somewhere in the gallery.”

He finished and looked quite proud of himself for reciting such a tale. 

“But the gallery burned down,” Sansa frowned. 

Pyp shook his head. “Aye, that one did, but they rebuilt it years later, turned it into this big fancy museum on the art and history of Winterfell and the North. To showcase the power of the Boltons and all that. They named it the Dreadfort after their family estate.” 

“And they still own it?” 

“Well, I suppose not anymore now that old Ramsay bit the dust,” Pyp frowned. “But who knows? Maybe the bastard’s ghost will come back from the dead just for that.” 

“Well, thank you,” she said. With the justification of the air getting colder and it getting late, Sansa excused herself. 

 

 

Neither the impressive exterior of the Dreadfort Museum nor the promises of the artistic and historic treasures it held inside helped to put Sansa at ease as she stepped into the entrance hall of pink, veined marble. She picked up a map from the front desk and scanned the layout. The current design mirrored the one from long ago, with the floors now both ascending and descending to hold vast displays of priceless paintings, sculptures, metalwork, gems, portraits, and more. The array was dizzying, really, and she wondered how she would possibly be able to identify the location she sought even if she saw it right in front of her face. 

It took her significantly less time than she anticipated. In the far reaches of the first floor, in an out-of-the way gallery with whitewashed walls that contained a single piece of work, right on the very spot where the absolute worst moment of her life took place, she surmised, she found it. 

“SNOW,” it was titled, in maybe some attempt to be ironic or funny. “ANONYMOUS,” read the artist’s name below. _Yeah, right._ That had Ramsay’s name written all over it, thinking he was being clever, building some kind of perverse memorial for his victory to hold his so-called prize. And if that weren’t enough, the year listed on the informational placard confirmed her suspicions. Ramsay had always been too vain for his own good. 

Sansa didn’t dare reach out to touch it, so instead she circled around the display, taking in the shape of the sarcophagus, inspecting the opaque black box, a raised strip of shimmering black in an otherwise all-white room. The material appeared to be obsidian, what they had always called dragon glass back in her day, hard and enduring, yet nowhere near impossible to crack with modern tools. 

She considered breaking the ethereal silence of the room for a moment, just to say something in the hopes Jon might hear, whatever his state, but then a couple wandered in, discussing the Picasso from the adjoining hall, and she left, the blood pounding in her ears. 

Tonight, then. Tonight and not a moment longer would she wait, no matter what it took. 

It would be best to do it with the least amount of trouble possible, though, so she approached the front desk, fully appreciating the time she spent over the recent decade earning a degree in art history and curation, anything that might help her now. 

“Hello,” Sansa said, doing her best to sound friendly and cheery and not full of rage and vengeance. 

The girl behind the desk looked up, revealing her nametag—Myranda. Sansa swore one of Ramsay’s barmaids had shared the same name long ago, but she had no time to speculate on coincidences now. 

She flashed her credentials, a university ID from King’s Landing with no expiration date listed. “I was wondering if it would be possible to reserve the Snow Exhibit this evening for research purposes. In fact, it would probably be for the best to secure the entire wing so I’m able to complete my work without any distractions.” 

Myranda appeared as though she had to desperately try to avoid rolling her eyes. “No research is allowed on the Snow Exhibit, the artist’s final wishes.”

“Is that so?” Sansa pretended to simper. “Not even if I’m willing to share my research with the people of Winterfell? Or with the gallery, the rights and all, for free? Promoting it could bring in a lot of interest.” 

Myranda smirked back and actually rolled her eyes this time. “Not even if you were Mr. Bolton himself.” 

Sansa went back that night to the cemetery. 

“Pyp,” she said. “I need your help. I need to break into the Dreadfort Museum.”


	4. Chapter 3

Pyp agreed, albeit reluctantly. Sansa had to ply him with the promise of a large payday, more than he made in months at the Winterfell cemetery, and a guarantee he would not be implicated in such a venture in any way, shape, or form. He insisted it couldn’t just be the two of them though—it would be far too risky to try to override the security system and cover all the doors at once—but that he knew of two more men who would be interested. They, with the singular names of Grenn and Tormund, plus Brienne, made up the group Sansa returned to the Dreadfort with just before dawn. 

The tallest of the men, Grenn, Sansa thought, jimmied open the back door while Pyp slipped through to disable the alarms and cut the wires to the Snow Exhibit. Sansa slid in behind him, dressed up like some kind of cat burglar in a black long-sleeved sweater, tight black jeans, and tall black boots. It wasn’t exactly the kind of outfit she imagined Jon seeing her in again after all this time, but the lace dress wasn’t quite practical for wielding a sledge hammer or running from whoever might create an interruption. 

She easily found her way to the room this time, careful to evade any red laser light detectors or whatever they would have installed here. The gallery was illuminated by dim lights that ran along the baseboards of the walls, the tomb itself encircled in a similar way. It was almost pretty, really, almost like true art, the way the black stone seemed to twinkle in the dark. 

There wasn’t time to admire, though. She dropped the heavier pieces of equipment and fished her scanner out of her bag, just in case it actually was only a huge hunk of black granite—she wouldn’t put it past Ramsay. But no, it was hollow beneath the surface with a long object inside, and strangely enough, the thermal detector on the device registered, too. 

“Okay,” she whispered to herself, to release some of her thrill, to steady herself, to remind herself of what she had to do next, she didn’t know which. “Okay.” 

She grabbed the sledgehammer, wondering what mark to hit. What if she swung too hard? What if she couldn’t swing hard enough? Well, at least Grenn and Tormund looked strong and violent enough that the two of them making the effort together could probably get through, not that she wanted them directly involved in this. What if beneath the obsidian laid something else she hadn’t picked up on before, like reinforced steel? Concrete? Another layer of stone, smaller and smaller and smaller until she discovered a note, “ _Haha, Sansa, did you think it would be this easy… xoxo, Ramsay_ ”? 

There was only one way to find out. She lifted her arms and swung.

The stone cracked with a dull sort of fissure, a few chinks appearing. Emboldened, she swung again, and again, until finally pebbles began to come away, rolling down the smooth planes until they bounced onto the floor. 

“Alayne?” Pyp called. “Is everything all right in there?”

“Fine!” she shouted. “I’m fine!” 

With another swing, a small hole appeared, just big enough to stick a single finger through. She estimated that perhaps with one more blow, she would be able to see him. 

She stopped to catch her breath and think. What would he even look like now? If Pyp’s story, full of outlandish theories and embellished details as it was, could be believed, he would be burned, decayed, only bones, if even that…

She didn’t let herself dwell on it, striking the stone again. 

Would desire have pent up in Jon’s state, too, over the last century as it had in her, intensifying rather than waning? How would he feel now, like a man who’d aged a hundred years or one who’d only missed the blink of an eye? Would he even want to be brought back, if wherever he lingered now was better than here, better than with her? 

She struck once again, for good measure, more because she wanted to rather than needed. 

This time she could peer in, the space wide enough to fit her face and a slim light. She didn’t know exactly what she expected him to look like now, but it certainly hadn’t been this, not the same face she recognized from so many years ago, not his hair still in long curls, not his smooth skin intact, immaculate, incorruptible. Perhaps Melisandre had been right—it was believable enough that he could merely have been asleep, suspended in an indefinite stupor. He appeared just as she last saw him, and to look upon his face after all this time… 

“Jon?” she said tentatively. 

No answer. 

She reached down and trailed her fingers across his skin. He didn’t feel warm per se, but he also didn’t feel cold or clammy or however actual dead people she supposed should. 

“Alayne?” came Pyp’s voice again. 

She ignored him this time. If it were pressing, Brienne would find her soon enough. 

Raising her arms again, she hacked at the stone until she created a gap big enough—for what? For him to crawl through? For her to lift him out? It had been stupid of her not to consider this before at the cemetery. She imagined Jon waking up trapped underground in his coffin or inside this monstrosity and shuddered. She peeled away the stone until it revealed the upper half of his torso… that should work—should. How was any of this supposed to work, really? 

She couldn’t bring herself to care, as long as it did. 

He glowed pale in the dim light, like part of some strange altar as she set up on the other half of the stone—first the lit candle, also almost certainly a violation of museum rules, then his hair, and finally the whispered words. She squeezed her eyes shut and said them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times before she allowed herself to peek. 

The candle flame danced in some nonexistent wind, his hair seeming to lift along with it, and a chill ran down her spine despite the fact she perspired with the effort of a dozen or so swings. She stared and prayed to a god she didn’t even know the name of, waiting, waiting… 

And then Jon opened his eyes.


End file.
